Passage 3 Soviet’s New Working Week

SECTION 3
READING PASSAGE 3
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 27-40 which are based on Reading
Passage 3 below.

Soviet’s New Working Week

Historian investigates how Stalin changed the calendar to keep the Soviet people
continually at work
A
“There are no fortresses that Bolsheviks cannot storm”. With these words, Stalin
expressed the dynamic self-confidence of the Soviet Union’s Five Year Plan: weak and
backward Russia was to turn overnight into a powerful modern industrial country.
Between 1928 and 1932, production of coal, iron and steel increased at a fantastic rate,
and new industrial cities sprang up, along with the world’s biggest dam. Everyone’s life
was affected, as collectivised farming drove millions from the land to swell the industrial
proletariat. Private enterprise disappeared in city and country, leaving the State
supreme under the dictatorship of Stalin. Unlimited enthusiasm was the mood of the
day, with the Communists believing that iron will and hard-working manpower alone
would bring about a new world.
B
Enthusiasm spread to time itself, in the desire to make the state a huge efficient
machine, where not a moment would be wasted, especially in the workplace. Lenin had
already been intrigued by the ideas of the American Frederick Winslow Taylor (1856-
1915), whose time-motion studies had discovered ways of stream-lining effort so that
every worker could produce the maximum. The Bolsheviks were also great admirers of
Henry Ford’s assembly line mass production and of his Fordson tractors that were
imported by the thousands. The engineers who came with them to train their users
helped spread what became a real cult of Ford. Emulating and surpassing such capitalist
models formed part of the training of the new Soviet Man, a heroic figure whose
unlimited capacity for work would benefit everyone in the dynamic new society. All this
culminated in the Plan, which has been characterized as the triumph of the machine,
where workers would become supremely efficient robot-like creatures.

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C
Yet this was Communism whose goals had always included improving the lives of the
proletariat. One major step in that direction was the sudden announcement in 1927 that
reduced the working day from eight to seven hours. In January 1929, all Indus-tries were
ordered to adopt the shorter day by the end of the Plan. Workers were also to have an
extra hour off on the eve of Sundays and holidays. Typically though, the state took away
more than it gave, for this was part of a scheme to increase production by establishing a
three-shift system. This meant that the factories were open day and night and that
many had to work at highly undesirable hours.
D
Hardly had that policy been announced, though, than Yuri Larin, who had been a close
associate of Lenin and architect of his radical economic policy, came up with an idea for
even greater efficiency. Workers were free and plants were closed on Sundays. Why not
abolish that wasted day by instituting a continuous work week so that the machines
could operate to their full capacity every day of the week? When Larin presented his
idea to the Congress of Soviets in May 1929, no one paid much attention. Soon after,
though, he got the ear of Stalin, who approved. Suddenly, in June, the Soviet press was
filled with articles praising the new scheme. In August, the Council of Peoples’
Commissars ordered that the continuous work week be brought into immediate effect,
during the height of enthusiasm for the Plan, whose goals the new schedule seemed
guaranteed to forward.
E
The idea seemed simple enough, but turned out to be very complicated in practice.
Obviously, the workers couldn’t be made to work seven days a week, nor should their
total work hours be increased. The Solution was ingenious: a new five-day week would
have the workers on the job for four days, with the fifth day free; holidays would be
reduced from ten to five, and the extra hour off on the eve of rest days would be
abolished. Staggering the rest-days between groups of workers meant that each worker
would spend the same number of hours on the job, but the factories would be working
a full 360 days a year instead of 300. The 360 divided neatly into 72 five-day weeks.
Workers in each establishment (at first factories, then stores and offices) were divided
into five groups, each assigned a colour which appeared on the new Uninterrupted
Work Week calendars distributed all over the country. Colour-coding was a valuable
mnemonic device, since workers might have trouble remembering what their day off
was going to be, for it would change every week. A glance at the colour on the calendar

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would reveal the free day, and allow workers to plan their activities. This system,
however, did not apply to construction or seasonal occupations, which followed a six-
day week, or to factories or mines which had to close regularly for maintenance: they
also had a six-day week, whether interrupted (with the same day off for everyone) or
continuous. In all cases, though, Sunday was treated like any other day.
F
Official propaganda touted the material and cultural benefits of the new scheme.
Workers would get more rest; production and employment would increase (for more
workers would be needed to keep the factories running continuously); the standard of
living would improve. Leisure time would be more rationally employed, for cultural
activities (theatre, clubs, sports) would no longer have to be crammed into a weekend,
but could flourish every day, with their facilities far less crowded. Shopping would be
easier for the same reasons. Ignorance and superstition, as represented by organized
religion, would suffer a mortal blow, since 80 per cent of the workers would be on the
job on any given Sunday. The only objection concerned the family, where normally more
than one member was working: well, the Soviets insisted, the narrow family was har less
important than the vast common good and besides, arrangements could be made for
husband and wife to share a common schedule. In fact, the regime had long wanted to
weaken or sideline the two greatest potential threats to its total dominance: organised
religion and nuclear family. Religion succumbed, but the family, as even Stalin finally
had to admit, proved much more resistant.
G
The continuous work week, hailed as a Utopia where time itself was conquered and the
sluggish Sunday abolished forever, spread like an epidemic. According to official figures,
63 per cent of industrial workers were so employed by April 1930; in June, all industry
was ordered to convert during the next year. The fad reached its peak in October when
it affected 73 per cent of workers. In fact, many managers simple claimed that their
factories had gone over to the new week, without actually applying it. Conforming to
the demands of the Plan was important; practical matters could wait. By then, though,
problems were becoming obvious. Most serious (though never officially admitted), the
workers hated it. Coordination of family schedules was virtually impossible and usually
ignored, so husbands and wives only saw each other before or after work; rest days
were empty without any loved ones to share them – even friends were likely to be on a
different schedule. Confusion reigned: the new plan was introduced haphazardly, with
some factories operating five-, six- and seven-day weeks at the same time, and the
workers often not getting their rest days at all.
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H
The Soviet government might have ignored all that (It didn’t depend on public approval),
but the new week was far from having the vaunted effect on production. With the
complicated rotation system, the work teams necessarily found themselves doing
different kinds of work in successive weeks. Machines, no longer consistently in the
hands of people how knew how to tend them, were often poorly maintained or even
broken. Workers lost a sense of responsibility for the special tasks they had normally
performed.
I
As a result, the new week started to lose ground. Stalin’s speech of June 1931, which
criticised the “depersonalised labor” its too hasty application had brought, marked the
beginning of the end. In November, the government ordered the widespread adoption
of the six-day week, which had its own calendar, with regular breaks on the 6th, 12th,
18th, 24th, and 30th, with Sunday usually as a working day. By July 1935, only 26 per
cent of workers still followed the continuous schedule, and the six-day week was soon
on its way out. Finally, in 1940, as part of the general reversion to more traditional
methods, both the continuous five-day week and the novel six-day week were
abandoned, and Sunday returned as the universal day of rest. A bold but typically ill-
conceived experiment was at an end.

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Questions 27-34
Reading Passage 3 has nine paragraphs A-I
Choose the correct heading for each paragraph from the list of headings below.
Write the correct number, i-xii, in boxes 27-34 on your answer sheet
List of Headings
i Benefits of the new scheme and its resistance
ii Making use of the once wasted weekends
iii Cutting work hours for better efficiency
iv Optimism of the great future
v Negative effects on production itself
vi Soviet Union’s five year plan
vii The abolishment of the new work-week scheme
viii The Ford model
ix Reaction from factory workers and their families
x The color-coding scheme
xi Establishing a three-shift system
xii Foreign inspiration

27 Paragraph A
28 Paragraph B
Example Answer
Paragraph C iii
29 Paragraph D
30 Paragraph E
31 Paragraph F
32 Paragraph G

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33 Paragraph H
34 Paragraph I

Questions 35-37
Choose the correct letter A, B, C or D.
Write your answers in boxes 35-37 on your answer sheet.

35 According to paragraph A, Soviet’s five year plan was a success because

A Bolsheviks built a strong fortress.
B Russia was weak and backward.
C industrial production increased.
D Stalin was confident about Soviet’s potential.

36 Daily working hours were cut from eight to seven to

A improve the lives of all people
B boost industrial productivity.
C get rid of undesirable work hours.
D change the already establish three-shift work system.

37 Many factory managers claimed to have complied with the demands of the new
work week because
A they were pressurized by the state to do so.
B they believed there would not be any practical problems.
C they were able to apply it.
D workers hated the new plan.

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Questions 38-40
Answer the questions below using NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for
each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 38-40 on your answer sheet.

38 Whose idea of continuous work week did Stalin approve and helped to implement?
39 What method was used to help workers to remember the rotation of their off days?
40 What was the most resistant force to the new work week scheme?

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ANSWER

27. iv
28. xii
29. ii
30. x
31. i
32. ix
33. v
34. vii
35. C
36. B
37. A
38. Yuri Larin
39. Colour-coding/colour
40. family